Diary of Jane
by KTWizard
Summary: The soul is a tool of blessing and cursing. What joy it can bring, it can also end. Love with another can return with Love. Death of another can return with your own Death.  Alternate episode 45 ending. Song Fic Contest with Bosbabe. Chrona X Maka


**Author's Note:** Well… This is my first song fic, and it's also a short contest with BosBaBe. The topic was whatever we wanted, but we had to make it a song fic telling each other what song we were going to use. My song is **Diary of Jane** by _Breaking Benjamin_. Good song, sad song, so this is hopefully going to a good fic with a sad theme. The theme I can guarantee. The quality… please review and let me know! I'm submitting this before her because I'm leaving on vacation soon, and I'm not sure I'll have internet connection at all. Hopefully, hers comes up soon, but she's been hella busy, and I understand, as you all hopefully do too...

My attempt, as it will show quickly, is to have a poem of sorrow within a song of misery. Diary of Jane is actually a pretty sad song, especially if you grab the acoustic version, and the poem I choose is famous for it. I can only hope it works out well. I did take some liberties with the actual poem, replacing a few choice lines to make what Chrona is saying fit better with the scenario. Surprisingly… I didn't have to change much, just like eight words total… Again, review and let me know how it goes.

For reference, and spoilers, it takes place in the anime, episode 45 I believe, when Maka comes to help Chrona and Marie fight Stein and Medusa. Because of the aforementioned sad theme, things… don't quiet go as planned.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><em><strong>If I had to<br>I would put myself right beside you  
>So let me ask<br>Would you like that?  
>Would you like that?<strong>_

Her form hung in the air. It wasn't majestic and it wasn't breath taking. It was just awful. Just an awful, horrible, horrendous, miserable, terrible, terrifying sight. Motionless on every level, still in every muscle, her body hung from the blade that impaled her, holding her above the ground. Nothing of her face could be seen, nothing of the wound that they all knew she had. Her black cloak hid all, hanging from her lithe body. Her weapon, her faithful scythe, looked up from the ground where he was dropped, no longer carrying to keep his form. His red eyes showed pain on a level his façade refused to admit, shark jaw trembling on the verge of cracking. Shock, pure and horrifying, flooded the white haired scythe's form. The meister they had come to save, the pink haired Demon Blade Meister, did that more.

Breathing failed him, in or out, nothing would come. He couldn't scream the name he so desperately wanted to say couldn't call for help, couldn't even bring him to state how impossible it was for him to deal with even the idea of this. The black blood of his body abandoned its own form, seeping back into his meister's body. He cared little for others, but he didn't want to deal with this either. And for the longest time, that's how the three stayed. Shocked, horrified, and stock still, staring at the sight that made their soul's quake with sorrow and disbelief.

Then the blade was pulled.

The arrow tipped Vector Sword, pulled its way out of the young meister's body, letting the blonde hang in the air for only a moment before she started to fall to the ground below. Both young souls shot to her falling form, reaching for her body before it meets the unforgiving concrete blocks. The pink haired youth managed to reach her back, stopping the heaviest part of her body from breaking across the floor, careless to the blood that spilled on his robe from the wound. Her silver-haired weapon caught her head, shielding her most fragile part from cracking on the ground. For a moment, and only a moment, neither did anything, still too mortified to speak. But then the blood began to pool, seeping from her wound too fast to understand, too fast to stop. Tears fell from cursed youth, looking at the wound that he wanted to take for her, the wound that she wasn't mean to have, then looking at the face of the young woman that had saved his life, seeing her soul slowly fade away. The Scythe looked around the wound, around the room, hoping to find something, anything to save her with, anything that he could use to save his meister's life with. She couldn't die, neither one of them wanted her to die.

The Demon Blade meister only saw it when he felt it, his angel's hand on his arm. He looked at the white-gloved hand, stained red from her own wound. It held him so lightly, so weakly, and he knew, he just knew, that that was all she could manage to hold him with. He couldn't deal with this. He didn't want to deal with this.

_**And I don't mind  
>If you say this love is the last time<br>So now I'll ask  
>Do you like that?<br>Do you like that?**_

"H-Hey Chrona." She whispers those words like nothings wrong, like she's just waking up from a nap. He wishes that was true, he wishes that was him, he wishes this was all a dream, and he was in Maka's place. He could deal with that. He could deal with the pain. But not this… he couldn't deal with this.

"Stop talking Maka, please stop…" The words whimper from his mouth, and to a blind man, it would sound like Chrona was the one dying in Maka's arms, being told comforting words in his final hour. Now, now it was Maka comforting her beloved friend, not letting any guilt flow to him. Her grip was so weak, so pitiful, but she kept it, and she made sure to not let go.

"I-it isn't s-so bad Chrona." She spoke those words honestly through a mouth that was leaking blood, and face that was losing color. "I g-got to save y-you after all. Y-you're safe." She smiled even brighter, and Chrona wept even harder. This wasn't right. This wasn't right for anyone.

"S-Soul?" She spoke her weapon's name, looking at his red puffing eyes. He was crying now, crying just like Chrona, and no one cared in the slightest. "Thank you."

"For what you idiot." The insult was as hollow as his heart felt. "You're dying cause I couldn't protect you. You're dying right here and there's nothing anyone can freaking do!" He shouted it, clenching his jaw. He had to look away from her, just for a moment at least. It was making him lose it, lose that restraint he was so proud to have. But then he felt her arm, the arm that she so often carried him with, touch his own arm. It was lighter than he thought it possible for her to give, and it was only another bitter reminder that she was leaving. But he still looked to her again. Watching her paint that smile on her own face in her final moments.

"Thank you f-for letting me… letting me be y-your meister." It takes a deep breath for her to continue, and it serves just another mark on the list that she is slowly slipping away. "Be a great D-Death Scythe. I know y-you can." The normally cool-headed scythe let his tears fall faster down is face, mournful groans coming from his chest. His face set itself on her shoulder, feeling her warmth slowly cooling beneath his touch, slowly giving away.

"Chrona?" Said boy looked to her, unable to deal with the idea of not doing as she said now. She wanted him, and he would be there for her.

"Maka?" Her lips trembled, and her eyes flickered, and Chrona could stop the thought of a dying candle, reaching the end of its stand. Giving one last final flicker before vanishing into a pillar of smoke, gone forever. He leaned into her, like Soul before him, setting his face just above her wounded stomach. He didn't want to cause her more pain. He didn't want to cause her any of this. He wanted her happy, no matter what. He didn't want to live without his Maka.

"I…" She takes another deep breath, struggling to finish that line. Chrona bent in further, unable to care to deal with how close he was to her. He wanted to be close to her, now more than ever.

"I love you Chrona."

She laughed briefly, but jovially.

She closed her eyes slowly and painlessly.

She let her body still.

She released her final breath.

_**No!**_

"No! No! **NO!**" The cries of the tortured meister ring and echo off the walls louder and more threatening than even the laughter Lucifer. They freeze the dark chuckles of the manic doctor; drop the wide grin the body stealing witch she had grown, and lifts the tear swollen red eyes of Soul. It was a cry worse than anything words can describe. No mutilation of the body, no torture of the mind, could come close to the agony expressed in those mournful cries of the cursed sword meister. The wound he felt, the pain that gave his voice such power, was the kind of pain no villain could properly commit, or fate could so easily perform. It was more than the pain of losing a loved one, more than that most painful of pains. It was the pain so great, the pain so rare for any to endure, that it was killing the black blood meister in the worst of death's ways.

His soul was tearing itself apart.

And with its slow death came the rise of the Black Blood. Blood, black and vile as a Kishin's heart, spilled from his mouth like a sick drool, hanging its way down his chin and to his robe. It seeped from pores along his entire arm, ripping and shredding the dark clothing in place of a malleable substance harder that diamond, and more sinister than deceit. Screaming the word he wished so hard to change time and destiny, he failed to notice his own blood moving from his eyes, covering his mournful grey with a hollow black, taking away the portals to view the world. The pain was there, and it would be enough to send masters of battle and warriors of time to their knees in surrender. But he didn't, he couldn't. The pain that he felt from the slow loss of his body didn't match to the pain of his dying soul.

Maka was dead.

His Maka was dead.

His Angel was dead.

Gone. Gone forever. Gone from him forever. The only person to ever love him. The only person to ever care for him. The only person… the only person to stand against Death for him was dead. It was his fault. All his fault. It was no one else's but his own fault. And his soul didn't deserve peace with that kind of guilt. So his soul died, and his body transformed. His angel was dead, and he was dying, but he would do one more thing before he let himself fall forever, one last act to apologize. It wouldn't be enough, not nearly enough. But it would be something, and anything was better than doing nothing. Maka deserved everything, and he would do anything to make sure she never received nothing.

His screaming silenced, his voice gone, he let his black filled eyes look to his beloved mother and compassionate teacher, watching through dead eyes their apathetic looks of contemplation and wonder. A slow smoke rose from the lips of the doctor, lost to the madness of the Kishin's blood. A satisfied smirk grew on the lips of the witch he once believed he had to hold dear. He knew what he had to do, and it was the only thing he had left to know. He would kill his angel's killers. A Demon Blade will kill a witch and monster.

Words began to form at the edges of his lips, dripping still with the vile substance of black blood. It was a poem he read long ago, a story a child of Death had shown him. It spoke of his own soul, and it spoke of his future. It twined itself into his being, forcing him to read it night after night until it became a bedtime story he read to himself in the stone prison he called home.

As his soul died, the poem was released.

"_From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore. For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore._"

Blade in one hand, blood hardened skin on the other, Chrona charged.

"_Nameless here for evermore._"

_**Something's getting in the way.**_  
><em><strong>Something's just about to break.<strong>_  
><em><strong>I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane.<strong>_  
><em><strong>So tell me how it should be.<strong>_

The blonde witch jumps away from the stone crushing force that is Chrona's new arm. It smashes against the stone block on which she just stood, shattering it with the ease of which one would crumble paper. The wicked snake witch lands on the column just beside Chrona, looking at him with malevolent satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.

"Ah, it looks like my black blood experiment is becoming a complete success." Her lithe and minor body dodges another crushing blow from the broken black blood meister, this time from his sword. Before he can swing at her again, she jumps to the side for her vectors carry her to another column across the room. Landing on her petite bare feet, she continues to watch Chrona as if he were attaching someone else entirely. The witch's gold-rimmed eyes see not the boy she gave birth to, crumbling away with his last hope. She sees an experiment over a decade in the making, reaching its final stage, only moments away from being a complete dominating success. As her snakes and arrows carry her from block, to stone, to column, to pillar, she never takes her eyes of her research, never letting her mind think of anything else but how beautiful her year of work are proving to be.

"Just look at you Chrona," she encourages as she jumps another vicious blow from his hardened bloody arm. "You could slay a thousand meisters, shake off the blows of a golem, maybe even hold your own against Asura! Just think of what an army of you could do. There wouldn't be a thing left in existence that could with stand your marvelous new might."

His dull black eyes search the stone gray room for his mother's blonde locks, looking for the thing the last shred of his soul so dutifully wishes to kill, maim, destroy, annihilate, slaughter. It's the only thing keeping the broken boy moving, and his blood alive. A long tongue, a slick appendage that couldn't have belonged to him hours before, slithers forth from Chrona's mouth. It's covered in the vile black blood that has hardened his body, torn his soul, and brought forth the final lines of life. It wraps around his neck, slicking the thick black liquid across his body, hardening it to the strength of diamonds and the toughness of steel. Then like a scared snake, it slithers back into its whole, the whole of its vassal still spewing more blood than any other body would dare think to lose. When it is hidden again, no longer a sick reminder to what is becoming of Chrona's body, the poem begins again.

"_Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before, so that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating_."

The hardened black arm threw itself behind him, almost without recognition to the mind that was meant to control it. It connects with the underfoot of the manic doctor, who despite having his ambush blocked, still grins with the joy of a masochist before his execution. White teeth painted black, the face of Chrona smiles in return, thrusting the black blood sword forward towards the man in white. As nimble as the master meister of Shibusen, he dodges the attack effortless, spinning with his foot to connect the back of Chrona's head. It hits with a force that could shatter stone. But against the notion that he could flying to the wall, the pink haired, slowly being dyed black haired, boy stands with only his head slightly tilted, smile just as vicious as it was before.

"_And here, here I open wide the door. Darkness there, and nothing more._"

The tongue that had just so recently hidden itself jets out towards the manic doctor, who's attack had left him without a method to dodge or defend. It wraps around his arm, tightening itself with a mixture of tainted black blood, demonic infused strength, and a broken soul's rage. Stein gives an attempt to grab the slippery appendage, maybe to snap it in half, but Chrona pulls a maneuver that leaves the action irrelevant.

He snaps the arm in two.

For all the crazed thoughts and ideals that were swimming within the twisted mind of Dr. Stein, not one of them could have him ignore so terrible a wound. A pain filled scream rips from his throat as he falls to the floor beneath dying sword meister's soul. The only other companion to show Chrona compassion screams for him to stop, her single eye filled with both fear and disgust. But he sees none of it, hears none of it. She isn't his angel, she isn't his demon, so she doesn't matter. Not anymore. All that last threads of his soul can bring themselves to care about are those two. The dead angel, and living demon. He would kill his demon, and avenge his angel.

_**Try to find out what makes you tick.**_  
><em><strong>As I lie down<strong>_  
><em><strong>Sore and sick.<strong>_  
><em><strong>Do you like that?<strong>_  
><em><strong>Do you like that?<strong>_

Those dead black eyes fall on his angel.

She's still on the floor, still unmoving, still keeping her eyes closed, still drawing no breath, still being held in the arm's of her weapon. It's all so still unfair, still not right, still wrong, still awful, still unavenged. He still needed to avenge her. He still needed to kill his demon. He still needed to pull her arms from her body, rip her eyes from her skull, and devour her soul with the ferocity of which she tortured his. That wouldn't be enough for him. Not even close. But maybe for his angel, maybe for Maka. That was all the last string of his soul wanted, for the remnants of Maka's soul to be happy, to be avenged. He would let the vile black blood rule his body for that to happen.

"Amazing, Amazing!" he hears the cheering and twists only his head to face it, to face the face of his child like mother. The dead eyes find her far above him, hanging from the ceiling with her vectors, holding her like a chair, keeping her afloat as she watches no differently than a spectator. But that's not what she is. She isn't her to watch for enjoyment. She's here to die, and he'll make sure of it.

"You're doing so well sweetheart!" She cheers again with genuine sadistic joy, "You did what Death Scythes are incapable of doing! You brought down the greatest meister ever to be trained by The Grim Reaper, and with your tongue no less! My black blood is truly flawless now." She still holds that smile, as she looks down upon him, careless to any word he recites, caring only for the strength of his destruction and force of his blood.

The blood that was covering him, oozing from pours with amounts that would make a mortician tremble. It hardened around his skin like the shell on his arm, trying to keep the pale body it came from alive despite the clear death of its soul. The broken smile and façade grin slowly vanish beneath the black liquid, covered up by the life taking, and life saving, liquid. Slowly it begins to reemerge teeth blackened with stain from the vile liquid. It's lips are just as dark as the blood that corrupts it, and just as dark as the poem the dying soul still begs itself to read.

"_But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. And the Only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lendore?" this I whispered, and an echo merumered back from the shadows, "Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more._"

His bladed arm swung a large arc to the wicked witch of the deceivers, its length growing as it approached. With a calm manner, Medusa swung herself from her vector arrows, letting the Demon Blade scar the ceiling as she fell towards her token child. Her direction changed on her approach, vector arrow speeding her to another far wall from which Chrona stood. A dozen of the horrid bolts sped towards him, zig-zagging and sporadically moving towards their clear target. With a cry she knew so well, his blood hardened arm swung at the projectiles, shattering the few he hit. The rest never touched him. Instead they wrapped around the fallen body of the manic scientist, still grinning with a maleficent smile despite the loss of his own appendage. A violent tug brought his form to the petite witch, who had yet to drop her own smile of genuine joy for a frown of fear, as the last remnant of Chrona's soul so wished for her to do.

"Hmm… my dear Stein." She speaks aloud to the manic lying careless at her feet. "You have done so well to test our son's abilities. Isn't he marvelous, isn't he perfect?" As she cradled the man's head in her lap, she looked to Chrona with those cunning golden eyes. She tried to mask motherly love into her gaze, and slip some compassion to her features. She tried to have Chrona see her as the mother he always wanted, holding someone she held dear with care and extending the same offer to him.

But Chrona was dead, and what was left didn't know how to love.

"And what about your Ragnarok? I know you are still in there." She spoke louder and higher the weapon of blood. "Do you want Chrona to die like this, or would you rather help me further, stay alive longer, and enjoy your existence more?" From the way she held her self, high with pride and without fear, it was clear to anyone who was looking just what she was expecting. She was waiting for the weapon to eagerly agree, to shout some vulgar slur of acceptance and rush over to her with or without his meister's compliance. She received nothing of the sort. The black blood hardened arm of former meister's body twitched violently at her words, twisting at odd angels that would have doubtlessly broken the bones of others. It tugged on itself like a prison, cracking the diamond hard blood until more of the vile liquid pulled itself forth. When enough had emerged, dripping onto the stone floor like a freshly killed body, it spun itself into the familiar shape of the demon blade, Ragnarok.

"Who the fuck are you ta even think I'd join you now you bigheaded whore!" His shout was high and powerful despite the small form his spoke from. But his words had the impact he wanted. The calm mask of Medusa cracked, showing a level of shock in her golden eyes. Wasn't this weapon the thing that always encouraged Chrona to follow her ways? Wasn't he the one who was so blindly loyal to the petty things she gave him? Why was no so different that before? She couldn't understand. All the while, Chrona continued to speak his final words with the long gone breath.

"_But with mien of Lord or Lady, perched above my chamber door, perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door, perched, and sat, and nothing more._"

"Just look at what you've done to him you whiny bitch!" His small-balled hand grabbed the bloody black hair that was once such a vibrant pink. The thin arms of the melted weapon shook the head back and forth with all the carelessness he did before this, their final fight. "He's dying cause of your shitty fucking ideas! What kinds of slutty bitch are you ta think I'd do what you say?" The witch he spoke to made no effort for words, instead giving the weapon she had placed inside her own son with a cold look that invited the final sleep. Ragnarok melted back into the arm of Chrona's dying body, hardening the blood shell when is entrance was complete. And the soon to pass voice of Chrona continued to speak the poem of misery and woe.

"_By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. "though they crest be shorn and shaven, though," I said, "are sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore! Quoth the Raven…_"

Sword pulled back, hollow black smile on his lips, he spoke as he attacked.

"_Nevermore_."

_**There's a fine line between love and hate.  
>And I don't mind.<br>Just let me say that  
>I like that!<br>I like that!**_

The stone the Demon Blade meister stood on crumbled beneath the force of his jump, shattering itself into rubble and dust. The wall he aimed his strike against followed suit. Medusa jumped from the blow with all the ease she had before, but now she no longer held the face of a victor, or a soul that had just accomplished a dream. For all of her dodging and avoiding of her own son's attacks, she looked caught between pondering and horror.

She had truthfully anticipated Ragnarok being ecstatic to rejoin her, nearly begging if anything. To have him so bluntly say no, and with his usual vulgar words, threw the witch for a loop she didn't quite think she could reach. Her plans hinged on at least one or the other always being loyal to her. For both of them to turn, she knew she had to convince them to rejoin her somehow, through pain or pleasure she didn't care which. A single vector arrow held the injured doctor, who seemed to no longer care for his grievous injury. Through his training or his madness, or maybe even both, he paid the missing limb no mind, instead enjoying the hectic battle from his position, carried like a hand basket.

His joy ride didn't last long, as the deceiving which landed with a spin, wrapping the vector arrow that held Stein around her body. It brought him close, upside down, and held just high enough for their faces to be only breath's length apart. The unique mask of joyful confusion lined his face as he looked into the witch's golden eyes, apathetic to the growing anger she held in her own. Instead of waiting, and without stopping, she spoke a command to the doctor.

"Favors should be returned, interest for those who are loyal." With that cryptic message for the maddened man, she whipped her twisted arrow, sending the white coated doctor at the Black Blood Monster. Brief recognition dawns on the doctor through he midst of his flight, and his fist readies itself for the impact. The broken meister in question, or monster as how the manic doctor saw it, twisted his head at an angle that would break most necks, pulling his sword arm back for assault. While the master meister anticipated the sharp of the sword he continued his spin regardless, letting the madness of his mind drive forth his attack.

Chrona fell from the wall to avoid the blow, letting the full strength of Stein's spirit shatter the wall with as much ease as his own black encrusted arm had. His form settled on another column of stone. He hunched over on himself, like he fell hugging his knees to his chest. Smile in place, and logic abandoned, Stein fell the same way, aiming to land just atop the rebelling son. But his course was turned, rather violently.

"SCREECH ALPHA!" Ragnarok's grating voice shrieked through the stone floorless room. The wicked vibrating of the vile blood crumbled the edges of the stone, cracking the walls with its horrifying pitch and volume. It forced chunks of the ceiling to fall into the endless pit, pieces of the walls to fall, and far more importantly, crippled the enemies who violently wished for his life. Stein deserted his attack, forcing his hands to his ears as he fell at the feet of Chrona's body, crawling in on himself. Medusa faired no better, despite their clear distance from the screech. Her own vectors forced themselves to her ears in protest to the noise, violently hating the sound that had given her so many souls and trials before. Her petite form fell to fragile knees, head upon the stone floor. But through the horrid crying of Ragnarok, Chrona's broken voice and dying soul continued to weave the woeful poem.

"_Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly. Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore. For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing a bird above his chamber door – Bird or beat upon the sculpture bust above his chamber door. With such a name as Lenore, Nevermore._"

But while the last remnant of Chrona's soul spun the tale he buried so deep, Stein was muttering to himself at the black blood meister's feet.

"Broken, Broken, Broken," The manic doctor repeated. "Shattered, dismantled, cracked, smashed, damaged, ruined, useless, fruitless, wasteful. No need, no chance, no requirement, no repair." His twisted eyes looked up from his fallen position eyes spinning with the closest thing his mind could call a thought of logic. "Removal, disposal, elimation." Pain dulled by the loss of reason, senses thrown by the strength of madness, Stein set his hand upon the black arm of Chrona, fearless and careless to what it could do and had done. Smile as wicked as the day he had killed for the first time in his long life, the manic doctor spoke a word and committed an atrocity.

"Execution."

He kicked Chrona's arm off.

_**Something's getting in the way.  
>Something's just about to break.<br>I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane.**_

Though only a cell of the once great soul that belonged to Chrona was left alive, the pain of losing an arm was little to be ignored. His cry broke the rhythm of his poem, shaking the room with a force that battled with screeching resonance of Ragnarok's rage. The famed Demon Blade melted in his hand as he grabbed at the stump that now replaced his arm. The once crystallized blood seeped across the stone floor, revealing the missing appendage, the black blood drenched arm, lying on the ground apart from him. His knees buckled, pulling him to the stone floor in his agony.

The manic doctor smiled with pride as the horrific cries of pain continued to erupt from the dying meister's blood drenched mouth, filling the room with a sound both he and the blonde witch found musical compared to cry that had resonated just before it. Damage done, and debt repaid, the doctor leaped away from his fallen foe, arriving next to Medusa with ease. His smile and genuine expressions of pleasure never faltering for even a moment. His single arm tucked itself into his jacket pocket, letting his eye rock on his shoulders to see the body he had so joyfully broken. The small witch, standing no higher than his waist, looked on with an equal sense of satisfaction.

Mad eyes swallowed in black blood looked at the remnant of his arm, crying in misery all the while. Looking to his arm, to where it just was, and back again, as if thinking through his pain, wondering how his arm came off, why it hurt so much, why he couldn't deal with it. But to everyone else, he was just screaming, crying loudly and justified for the loss of his arm, the loss of which had crippled even the greatest of warrior and knights before him.

"Shitty… fucking… bastard…" A high voice spoke in a strained voice, heard only by one in the stone room, the only sane one left in the room. Ragnarok appeared slowly from the hole on Chrona's side, looking at the blood drenched face of his meister with his own white crossed eyes. It was, and still is, impossible to read emotions on the Black Blood weapon. Everything but anger looked the same. It was impossible to see sympathy, happiness, joy, sorrow, or pity. They all looked like blank slates on a face made of lines. He was a thing that could only be read by actions, and his actions spoke with volumes that his screeches had yet to reach.

"This… this fucking sucks Chrona." The words came in a wheeze. He was dying too, he was loosing too much of himself. Too much of the black blood, too much of the substance that made him who he was, kept him alive, was being lost. Lost too fast to harden and save. "Are… are we seriously gonna… gonna fucking die in this shit hole… from a f-fucking cheap shot like that? I… I thought… that we w-were so much fucking better th-than him." It was as false as the love Medusa had for Chrona, but Ragnarok laughed nonetheless. His white balled hands reached for the face of Chrona, pulling the still screaming boy closer to him.

"Y-You've always been… s-such a screaming pansy. Crying how… how stupidly hard i-i-it was for you t-to do… do anything. You… you couldn't e-e-even deal with breathing once." All the while he talked, the Demon Blade incarnate never stopped moving his face closer and closer to his screaming meister. Medusa watched on with odd fascination, wondering why the normally critical and apathetic weapon as being so… dare she think it… compassionate with the meister he had lived within for nearly a decade. Stein didn't care, Soul didn't care, and Maka couldn't care.

"B-But… pigtails gave her u-useless life for u-us. N-Now your dying c-cause… cause she's gone. F-Fucking hilarious." His forehead was pressed against Chrona's now, the black blood that had poured from the pores of the meister was slowly seeping back into the body of the tiny weapon, returning to the soul that had created them. "G-Guess it's time… time I joined in…"

_**As I burn another page,  
>As I look the other way.<br>I still try to find my place in the diary of Jane.  
>So tell me how it should be.<strong>_

"What act are you attempting to perform Ragnarok?" Medusa questioned from her stone column, across the bottomless chasm that separated them. "His soul is burning itself out, giving you complete access to all of your powers without the requirement of a meister." She couldn't help her wicked grin. "It's the best of all worlds. Never having to cater to his selfish desires, not having to worry about his own misguided senses of morality, allowing yourself to kill and eat as many souls as you desire. Just think, you could become a Kishin, a god to all, before even The Grim Reaper could lay a hand upon you." Her arms were extended in invitation, an offer she hoped he would accept.

The weapon didn't even acknowledge her existence.

He continued to stare at the shrieking face of his meister, his unreadable expression a stark contrast to the morbid and painful appearance of his meister, covered in blood and missing a precious limb. The scene was as confusing as it was horrifying, statue-esc almost aside from the shrieking face of Chrona. But only Medusa gave consideration to the scene. Stein saw it as pride for his work, Soul only watched Maka's lifeless form, still confused to how it all could have ended to abruptly. Irritation came over the petite witch's face and her mouth opened to speak again. But she was caught, silencing herself, as the scene began to change. And it changed, but none could call it for better or for worse.

Ragnarok pushed himself against Chrona's face, forcing his black blood body to overtake the messy pale skin of his meister, stained only by the blood they shared. The screaming continued, but it was for none to say if it was from the pain of the loss of limb, or the idea of being lost to his own blood. The weapon's face began to melt into its own body, white crosses vanishing beneath the vile black liquid. With it, slowly, Chrona's own pale flesh joined. It began with his forehead, slowly taking in more and more of the meister's body. The pink stained black hair slowly began to drown, his lost black eyes giving in so easily, cheeks vanishing under the liquid, and finally, his screams being muffled by the melding.

The silence that was created in the void of his cries was haunting, earning even the tear-faced gaze of Soul. The shattered body and soul of one sword meister stood on the lone stone pillar, swallowed slowly by the blood that was his weapon for nearly all the years he had been alive. Black vile blood growing around him, surrounding his entire form in the substance that could harden to the strength of diamonds, and mold itself with more flexibility than clay. It dripped on the floor as it took over him completely, dripping with a hollow splat that was just and terrifying in nature as the sight they bore witness to. The wicked witch of the deceivers looked on with both fascination and curiosity as her son was, seemingly, killed completely by his long time partner. Soul watched with tears fresh as dew, thinking with his broken logic and lost reason that this was truly the end, the death of Maka and the death of Chrona. Stein… Stein continued to marvel with glee at what he thought was a beautiful end.

But slowly, it was changing.

The vile blood began to recede, thinning out from the pale body it encompassed, returning to the inside of the body that served as both home and cell to it. Patches of the familiar pale skin and long black dress slowly showed through the mess of blood, clean and seamless despite the horrid substance that had only just covered it. Through pores, wounds, and open cavities, the blood receded back into its meister's body, hiding away from all who can see it. But it left behind not more of its meister's form, but less, far far less.

The vibrant pink hair of Chrona was no more, now a permanent sickly black, frayed and mangled as it was before. Sharp tips and edges lying down his face and the back his neck, each point looking genuinely sharp enough to cut through stone. Black fangs hung in his mouth now, no longer the white pearls that reflected the true desires of his soul. They gave more than the impression of a predator, they gave the expression of a monster, a demon even, a thing that yearned for flesh to sink into and for souls to feast upon. But odder than the changes to his features were what was added, what had become permanent. To be precise, his gown. It was no longer the white collared dress he had worn nearly all his life, not torn, not damaged, and not even wrinkled. It was still as black as the night, and it still covered more than any other article of clothing, but it was no longer separate from its wearer, no longer an article of clothing, but an object of his person. The white collar and white cuffs were gone. Black lines instead took their place. They sunk into the pale skin, fusing themselves with his very being, permanently attaching themselves to meister of the demon sword and wielder of the black blood. As permanent now as the blood he had for life.

But what it changed, it also healed. The wound that created such terrible cries from the last remains of Chrona's soul was gone, gone as his arm was gone. No stump or limb remained, just a fallen side to his chest, as flat as his back and neck. Only one limb now to carry the his weapon, to raise, hold, and cherish other things with. Only one hand to grasp others with. Even the smaller wounds were no longer in existence, not even in the memory of his broken mind. No scars upon his face, tears in his dress, or mars on his skin. For the intents and purposes, he looked as fresh for battle as a knighted squire, eager for the blood of his enemies and more than willing to take it.

But the most daunting change of all were his eyes. No the stormy grey, not peaceful green, not serene blue or even tortured yellow. Red. Sickly vile morbid blood red. The color of the liquid he had spilled of so many victims, but the one color he never had flowing within him. The color that he never wore, but truthfully spoke more for the workings of his soul than either vile black or pure weight. A tainted color that brought life but also reminded of death. His eyes reflected it well, and his mouth spoke well of the workings of the last trace of his soul.

"_That one word, as if his in that one word did outpour. Nothing further he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered. Till I scarcely muttered more, "I had that love before. On the morrow she will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said…_"

His soulless red eyes looked to the witch who had tortured his life. Nothing but malice was written on his face.

"_Nevermore_."

_**Desperate, I will crawl**_  
><em><strong>Waiting for so long<strong>_  
><em><strong>No love, there is no love.<strong>_

"Beautiful… perfect, amazing!" Medusa cheered as she clapped her hands with genuine excitement. "This is… this is everything I worked for and more! This is enough even to solidify all my data and research for centuries." Her yellow eyes took none of the malice her son offered her with any serious consideration. She was as apathetic to his gaze of hate as she was to his wails for mercy or begging for peace. Her vectors spread out in front of her, digging into the stone she stood on, extending to the column that Chrona's new form stood upon.

"My child, Chrona," She spoke his name with such… passion. "You have finally done more than I could have ever hoped of you. It's more than just letting Ragnarok ruling your body, you've done what so many have called impossible, what even I have thrown away for young fairytale romance." Her petite feet began to step across the bridge made by her arrows, walking towards her son like he had to raise any words against her, let alone blade or arms. No steps faltered, no muscles twitched, not even a bead of sweat formed on her brow. She was completely confident in her work.

"You, my son Chrona, have formed a perfect fusion with Ragnarok." Her smile was as wicked and vile as any other moment she felt proud to bear it, showcasing every morbid joy she got out of the mutilation of the minds, bodies, and souls of others. Arms extended outwards towards the fused creature, she continued to speak, thinking nothing of anything else around here.

"With this… with this magnificent act you have done for me, we can take Death City and Arachnophobia all at once. There isn't a thing in this world that can stand against you." Her arms were just before his, reaching to the limp limb. She was only a hair's width away from touching it, from sending one of her vile snakes into the body of her son for insurance, when the poem Chrona began continued to unfold.

"_Startles at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store. Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore – Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore of '__**Never**__ – __**Nevermore!**_"

She had only a moment to react, and her sense were far from dulled. The black arrows of Medusa grew to her right side, forming a defense for attack. The very moment it was completed, the Demon Blade struck her side. The arrows did their part to keep the sickly blade away from the witch's petite body, but the force shot her back across the room, unable to stand against it. She impacted the far wall, crater formed from the sheer force of an arm's swing. She fell to the stone column beneath her none too gracefully.

The newly changed Chrona continued to smile.

_**Die for anyone**_

_**What have I become?**_

A violent twist of the neck, one that would have surely broken the bones and stem of anyone else, was performed by the fusion of meister and weapon. It made his lifeless red eyes look to the maiden he called so frequently to in his dying poem, the lost maiden that was dead before the death of his own soul. Still covered in her own blood, still lying without motion on the cold floor, still growing as cold as the room they battled within. She was never going to smile to him again, as meister or friend. But something moved above her, just a hand's length above her that grabbed the dying meister's attention.

It was her weapon, her partner, and her faithful protector, Soul. His red filled eyes were now rimmed with tears; face as miserable and broken with the undeniable truth that lay in his arms. The way his body was fallen, the way his soul was down, it reminded the last wisps of Chrona's soul just how he felt, just who Soul was becoming. He was becoming him. He was becoming no different than the broken character Maka had cared for, had saved, twice, and then thrice. He was the shadow of his former façade, now just boy with the truth of the world heavy in his arms. And Chrona's black blood eyes could see as clear as the blue sky on a cloudless day just how Soul was changing. The next stanza of his poem approached, and he dragged the attention of the weeping weapon with it.

"_But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking. Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore – What this grim, ungainly ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore meant in croaking "Nevermore.""_

Any confusion the weapon had was swiftly killed when the single bladed hand stabbed violently at the entrance to the stone room, his eyes boring into the weapon form still. No compassion crossed the darkened eyes; no understanding met his black hollow lips. Only an order to keep away from warning, only a request to save a life so like his own. The weapon was a fool to nothing, and was often the one asked for direction in times of fear or confusion. He was wise beyond what he showed, and he knew well just what the dead body of his partner's lover meant. As kindly as he could to the dead, he lifted Maka's body from the stone floor, careful to have her head, lifeless, as it was, lull itself into his neck. Just the contact of the body he knew long gone, falling with gravity like it were alive, brought fresh tears to his already stained face.

"I'll… I'll take her to Shibusen Chrona," he said to the boy, the weapon, no, the dead man that told him to leave. "They'll understand, and I'll tell them everything. They'll know what she did, they'll know what you did, and I promise, on… on her last breath, that I'll make sure everyone will love you for it." It was a bitter smile, but it was a smile nonetheless that made itself known across the face of the defeated weapon, carrying home the body of his meister. With just another line he was gone.

"Kill them slowly Chrona."

The weapon gone, and only enemies remaining, black haired body twisted its neck back in place, the violently snapping doing nothing to the already crazed doctor and beyond apathetic mother. They still watched, still contemplated the actions of the fused soul before them, wondering with both indifference and caution what would become of the battle now that there was nothing for the last bits of the meister's soul to hold him back. They're answer came in words, but only made clearer by actions. The stump of Chrona's arm raised itself parallel to the ground, black blood oozing out of it like a drain slowly being turned off. No one paid it any mind.

"_This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing to the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core. This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining on the cushion's velvet lining that lamplight gloated over. But whose velvet lining with the lamplight gloating over, She shall press, ah…__** Nevermore**_."

The dead faucet was turned to full, in a display that caused more than just a flash of fear within the only sane body of the room. It was flood of fear, much like the flood that was being produced. A flood, a great flood, a biblical flood that would be written in scriptures should any man sane and willing right about it. It made the witch's mouth run dry.

The Black Blood flooded forth from Chrona's once stump of an arm.

It began to paint the room black.

_**Something's getting in the way.  
>Something's just about to break.<br>I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane.  
><strong>_

And the room was painted with the blood, painted a vile destructive black. For any that dared to even still think of it, it only confirmed the notion that the blood was more than just what Chrona's body held. It was proof that the spirit that possessed made the substance infinite and everlasting. For those who faced the broken bleeding soul as an enemy, they knew now it meant their demise.

The manic doctor swung to a far wall, escaping the menacing mass of the black blood. The missing arm pained him, and hampered what he could do, but the madness gave him the energy, and sick desire, to fight beyond his body's will. Medusa, the dreadful witch of deceit and destruction, found herself in avoiding the substance she had spent so long researching and building. Just moments ago she was overjoyed to see the fruition of her decades of work, seeing the blood form a living weapon that could defeat the strongest of meisters. Dodging its maddened strikes was not difficult, and they weren't now. But now… things were changing.

It was no longer the broken dying spirit of Chrona she was fighting, but also the angered version of Ragnarok. It was more than just their cooperation, it was their fusion. Joy and bliss ran through her when she saw what is currently attacking her, looking into the hollow red eyes of Chrona's body, no longer their sad tainted silver, but a lifeless immortal red. The blood that had lived inside him for so long now abandoning its one time prison, corrupting the body of its prison keeper. That was what she had always wanted, to have the weapon control all its strength without any of the restraints of a meister. To have the bond of two be made into one in the most literal of ways. She was just so excited, just so thrilled, but now… Now she couldn't help the thought she had made a critical error. Somewhere, along some lines, in some way, Chrona had lost his fear of her, and Ragnarok had made a bond with Chrona. She chose that weapon, the demon blade of inhuman form, for the reason that he would not care for any but himself. But for him to threaten her, to willingly die for Chrona just to kill her, it was a mistake she would have to correct.

Vectors and snakes emerging from her skin, the blonde witch aimed one of the poisonous creatures for the still open mouth of her son's body, aiming to tear him inside out. She could stop the blood's hardening, force him to-

She stopped. She had to stop.

She had hit a wall of Chrona and Ragnarok's black blood.

The snake died mid flight, caught and swallowed by the formless mass of the vile liquid, swallowing and crushing it as any predator would do to its prey. The owner of the blood, the fusion of two foiled souls, towered above the owner of that dead snake. As the snake was to the blood, now she was to her son. Trapped, and ready to be killed. A stonewall behind her, and walls of black blood now surrounding her. Unless she could claim more room, she was at his mercy. The mouth now painted a sickly black no different than Medusa's own soul let poem of his own end continue to weave as his hollow but piercing red eyes stared down at the woman he called mother.

"_Then me thought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer. Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God had lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee. Respite – Respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore_."

She could hear the message his dying soul was speaking to her, through a poem written before even her own birth. No forgiveness would fall her way, and not sympathy would be offered to her, in this tense moment, in this her final minute of the final hour. She had one choice, one chance, one last hope to escape this. It worked before, countless times before. But this was no longer the same Chrona. And this… this was not the same.

"You…you know that aren't alone Chrona." The terrified witch spoke as calmly as she could, trying near fruitlessly to conceal the terror in her voice and face. "I've never kept you away from me, always inviting you back, even you Ragnarok. You're both so precious to me, and… and I don't want to lose you." Though the soul of both meister and weapon had both died and combined, the form that stood before Medusa did still under words, twisting with a bend its head at the words she spoke. Trapped as she was, the blonde witch of deceit and discord spoke further for her own life, believing this still form was thinking upon her words.

"There's no reason to think that I'll ever… ever hurt you again. You're done. You did a great job for me. You have turned my experiment into a complete success." Holding her petite arms outwards, as inviting as she could, Medusa spoke the words she believed would secure her right to flight.

"Return to my side, and I'll forgive for everything you've done." Those were not the right words.

The form of Chrona and Ragnarok twisted upon itself, jaw cracking bone and hardened blood under the its own force, diamond hard arm gripping the side of his face as he body turned in on itself. Red bled black and black bled blood, the sword melting upon it, dripping into a new more menacing form as its owner fought with his self. The hilt vanished form sight, the guard gone to the blade, but the blade thinned and dulled. It was no longer a blade, but a handle, but the tip was no longer a point, but a weight. The black blood of Chrona was collecting at the end of Ragnarok's unspeaking form, twisting and hardening as it gathered. And as the handle grew harder, the edges of the weight grew sharper, longer, and heavier. The black blood dried completely by its own desire, finishing itself into the menacing shape that drove terror deep into the hearts and souls of criminals and demons alike. The shape once thought more terrifying, and often more final, then even the Scythes of Death.

The Demon Blade had formed into an Executioner's axe.

With a great force from the human arm, the mighty weapon was carried above the meister's head. Surrounded by stonewalls and blood barriers, the little light the met the witch's golden eyes showed a terrifying vision. It showed the body of her son, her own flesh, but not blood, corrupted with the most sinister of substance, given a new form, but no life. Weapon high above him, and face hardened with both unwavering hate and boundless joy, Medusa saw more than just a Dark Angel. She saw another reaper; she saw the thing that could replace Death for his place in the world. Her own creation, her own hands, her own ideas, would take her life before anyone else's.

"Ch-Chrona!" The witch shouted in fright, pushing back on the stone with the hope it would crumble for her escape. "Y-You don't want to do this! Please!" But from the lips of her child's body, no longer containing her child's soul, the final stanzas to a chilling poem emerged. The message it carried dark and cruel, like the blood she had made him bare.

""_Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil – prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore – Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp the sainted Maiden whom the angels name Lenore! Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore! QUOTH THE __**RAVEN-**_"

The axe fell.

"_**NEVERMORE!**_"

_**As I burn another page,  
>As I look the other way.<br>I still try to find my place in the diary of Jane.**_

Only a manic doctor was left in the stone room, left outside the box of blood and stone. Only he could hear the terrifying wails of pain and torment, of agony and misery. Through the black blood it was nothing more than a muffled, as indistinguishable as it was. Through the boundaries of his maddened mind, it came to him as laughter, as someone as he passed by. That made him smile. While the witch that had forced more than a hand in corrupting his mind was slaughtered alive, he smiled outside that box, blissfully unaware to her fate, unaware of anything at all.

Slowly though, the blood did begin to melt, and the prison of Medusa's cries began to disappear. It drew the interest of Stein if only because it was the only thing moving in the room besides him. As if it were ice in the sun, the blood slowly began to melt away, pooling along the stone on which it stood, dripping off the edge into the endless pit below. At the center of the horrid mass was a defenseless boy, hair as black as the night, and with eyes more piercing than the end of a sword. The boy's hard gaze was settled on the petite figure of a young girl, brutally cut, horribly maimed, and completely lifeless. Even the conduit for her soul, the center of her form, her beating heart, was ripped into innumerable amount of pieces, scatted and lost in the black blood they both slowly began to be drenched.

The manic scientist stared at the sight, thoughts and ideas floating through his head of what had happened. He was awfully curious to the whereabouts of his own maiden, the small child that had guided him through the madness to see what was important. She did lead him here, she did give him things to destroy, to dissect, to rip and tear apart, but she was no where to be seen now. All he could see now, all he could hear, besides the dripping blood and stonewalls, was the low mumbling of the boy. Constant, continuous, slow, scattered, and inaudible. Inaudible… inaudible things are broken. Broken things can't be repaired, that's what the child had told him, and she was right often. Broken things had to be taken care of. They had to be smashed. This thing, this thing was larger than the others, it would be tougher than the others. He would need more of his strength than usual. Facing the broken boy, he pushed his entire soul wavelength into his arm, mumbling to himself as the boy did as well. But while the manic doctor whispered only words of destruction for peace and order for chaos, the boy spoke the final lines of his life. It was the last stanza to a timeless poem, and the final telling of his final moments. Just like his entire life, just like his entire cursed life… he was the only to hear his own words.

"_And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight over him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow lies floating on the floor. Shall… shall be lifted…"_

The manic doctor charged at the kneeling Warrior of Black Blood, last arm sparking with the complete strength of his soul. Murder was in his maddened eyes. The fallen form of Chrona did nothing to stop him.

"_Nevermore_."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Please read and review. Much appreciated.


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